"O Madam! Where you want to go?", "Wah! Kya lagti hai (she looks fabulous)". The fruit vendor or the taxi driver or just a passer-by and a dangerous bystander who can turn into a fatal opportunistic, in their cheap tone, often gag women with such remarks. Whenever they see a person with features unlike other Indians, they speak English despite having no command over it.

In India, girls have come across such victimisation of men whether verbal or physical. The cheap remarks full of connotations might be popular in the country when it is against women but reactions and meanings are altered when it is against race, caste or creed or more so inflated when it comes down to what region you belong to. Is it justified? We will get back to that later.

In
Focus

We live in an era of mixed generations, cultures and opinions sutured by one thing called unity. But that is the bigger picture including the whole world. I cannot get the world without transiting the area, the locality, the town, the district, the state and the country I live in first. India is a third world country to the other nations, specifically the other super power countries. But is this really India?

India exceeds in agriculture, fisheries and livestock, the cities are developing or almost developed because it is subjective, communications, demographics and economy, environment (still subjective), geography, globalisation, militia, politics, religion, society, technology and wealth.

It is ironic that when on one hand, this very country is reaching heights of acclaim and progression, on the other it is tied down by meager thoughts and mentality. In this rat race of life, what we all strive for, is survival. Living life is a battle in itself and in all of this, there is a humdrum monotony, repetition and a solo drill called existence. We did set ourselves free from the clutch of foreign invasion but did we fight the demons that were inside ourselves, ruling the society? I don't need to answer that.

Racial Discrimination victims from the North East

January 29 2013: Nido Taniam, a twenty year old boy, beaten to death publicly in the streets of Lajpat Nagar, Delhi by a group of merciless shopkeepers. Nido, fell prey to racial discrimination and died on account of having a different hair colour that was unacceptable to the supposed moral police of the society. Nido was from Arunachal Pradesh.

April 17 2012: Loitam Richard, a nineteen year old boy falls prey to racial discrimination and dies in his hostel room in Bangalore. A student of architecture doing well in his studies was beaten up by two room-mates to death. Cause of death: Internal injuries in his head. Loitam was from Manipur.

October 26 2009: Ramchanphy Hongray, a nineteen year old girl from Nagaland, became another victim of racial discrimination. "Ramchanphy was allegedly strangled by IIT-Delhi researcher Pushpam Kumar Sinha, 34, after she resisted his attempts to force himself on her. Sinha, whom the police are now calling a sexual pervert and a maniac on the basis of entries in his personal diary and material in his laptop, is suspected to have strangled Ramchanphy and then held her face down in the gas stove, burning her face, hair, chest and clothes, " as reported by the Indian Express.

Other instances of Discriminationand Subjugation

"The other day I was crossing the street in Park Circus and a bike with three riders came from nowhere, one of the boys threw a beer bottle at me and laughed loudly and rode past me. I ducked the bottle but was mortified from within," said Manisha Lama.

"I live on the first floor, just across the street. It was almost midnight. There were guests in the house and we all were awake and so I was on the phone in the balcony. A boy from across the street made inappropriate gestures and was literally manhandling himself." He shouted, "Oye Chinky! Tu bhi aaja," said Tenzing Sherpa.

"I was on the metro, travelling from Esplanade to Jatin Das Park. While I got my ticket and waited on the platform for the train to come, a man came close and stood next to me. I moved. Then his friends came and they all stood together and stared down at me. I am six feet tall but they made me feel like I was not standing there at all. They spoke in their regional language and although I cannot speak their language, I have perfect understanding. They teased me about my hair, my clothes, called me gay, and also said how much fun they would have ripping my clothes apart," narrated Abhimanyu Rai.

These were some real life experiences of some of the people I have met in Kolkata. Kolkata is not very far from North East India. I live here and I am from Darjeeling. I speak Bengali but when I converse in this language there is always a startle as if I have done something impossible.

Yes, some people from the North Eastern states do not have the fluency in Hindi or Bengali like every other person from a different region. There isn't any need for everybody to have that command. But what difference does it make? I wonder if Punjabis are looked down upon if they cannot speak Telugu.

Being referred as baby/ babies, chinks/ chinky, and other lewd names, embarking upon the same phrase, "racial indiscrimination". It has always been like that. Sometimes it's the language, sometimes it's the height, and most commonly it is the face, the size of the eyes, now even hair colour.

The discriminators however, do not realize that the size of their brain is a quarter of a nut. This is how the rest of the India is, uncivilised, inhumane and unjust. While there are people falling victims, especially students, there are people raising their voices for the same. But are these hues and cries heard? Are they answered? Are there stringent actions taken against such people? That is not the question I oblige to answer.

When Rahul Gandhi said, poverty is a state of mind; I was up in arms and was furious. Today, I have reconciled with that statement and have managed to derive an apt meaning.

Yes, in India it is not the wealth that illustrates being rich. The culture and heritage is just a facade. After sixty years of Independence and growth, with a mentality like this to kill based on lame conjectures we are still very poor and are driven by those norms of the society that take us back to medieval ages, where living independently is still a taboo. It is nothing but the mentality and the mindset that can be blamed along with the lack of stringent law enforcement for the aftermath.

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